Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

43 DATA ANALYTICS & AI UCSF to launch AI center for radiology technology By Jackie Drees U niversity of California San Francisco announced Oct. 11 that it will open a new center focused on advancing the use of artificial intelligence in medical imaging. The Center for Intelligent Imaging, also called ci2, will apply AI to create new ways to examine the inside of the human body and to evaluate health and diseases. UCSF researchers will collaborate with engineers from Nvidia, a technology company that specializes in AI computing, to develop tools and infrastructure to incorporate AI into clinical practice. Researchers in the center will use patient images and clinical data from UCSF Health to develop, test and validate deep learning algorithms. "The volume of medical imaging has been rapidly increasing and radiologists are struggling to keep up with the sheer number of images," said Sharmila Majumdar, PhD, a professor and vice chair in the UCSF radiology and biomedical imaging department, according to a news release. "Ci2 aims to impact the entire value chain of imaging, from the time the patient comes for a scan to the final delivery of individualized, quanti- tative, prognostic and care-defining information." n Intermountain taps AI to engage chronic kidney disease patients By Andrea Park S alt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare's new Kidney Services Clinic will use artificial intelligence to develop customized engagement plans for all chronic kidney dis- ease patients, AI software provider SymphonyRM announced. The new program and clinic, which celebrated their grand opening Sept. 5, will implement SymphonyRM's HealthOS platform. The platform applies machine learning and ad- vanced analytics to patient data to provide insights that help clinicians better engage patients and improve outreach. According to Suji Lee, MD, medical director of the program, the platform will help to "increase participation, track and treat comorbid conditions which can decrease the severity of CKD and empower patients to take a more active role in their own healthcare to improve outcomes while lowering costs." In addition to the SymphonyRM platform, which is already in use in other Intermountain facilities, the Kidney Services Clinic will also team up with another existing Intermountain partner, MDClone, to develop a predictive model to monitor chronic kidney disease status. n Penn Medicine predictive system increases palliative care consults by 74% By Andrea Park A system powered by predictive analytics of EHR data to determine when a palliative care consultation is most beneficial for a patient resulted in a significant increase in consults, a recent study found. Researchers from Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine developed Palliative Connect, which uses machine learning to analyze patient data, examining 30 factors that contribute to a seriously ill patient's likely six- month prognosis. The system then suggests a con- sultation to the patient's physician, who can accept or deny the appointment. As a result, not only did the number of palliative care consults increase by nearly 75 percent, but they occurred an average of a day and a half sooner. These appointments give seriously ill patients and their families the opportunity to discuss their wishes and priorities, according to senior author Nina O'Connor, MD, chief of palliative care at Penn Medi- cine, and can thus result in significant improvements in the quality of care. n Great Plains Health launches new sepsis alert protocol By Gabrielle Masson N orth Platte, Neb.-based Great Plains Health implemented a new sepsis alert system Oct. 1, according to The North Platte Telegraph. The new protocol is a collaborative effort with local emergency medical services teams. Emergency responders will alert the emergency department of a suspected case of sepsis before the patient arrives, ac- cording to James Smith, MD, emergency department medical director at Great Plains Health. "We know that for every hour that we delay in the treatment of somebody who is septic, the mortality rate goes up by 4 percent," he told The North Platte Telegraph. "This early alert will drastically reduce the time to treatment, which often means the difference between life and death." Sepsis kills someone every two minutes in the United States and causes more than 1.5 million hospital stays annually, according to the Sepsis Alliance. n

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